South east NSW goes on alert as fires rage in Victoria's East Gippsland

People in the New South Wales south east are on alert as the threat from out of control fires in Victoria continues to develop.

The New South Wales border town of Delegate is facing warnings of ember threats and the remainder of the Monaro can expect smoke.

State forests have been closed between Eden and Bombala as well as the South-East Forests National Park, south of Imlay Road.

New South Wales Forestry Corporation Regional Manager, Daniel Tuan, says visitors and recreational hunters have been told to leave.

“We've got our rangers out doing patrols at the moment and they have been going around to all our recreation sites and also camping areas and asking anybody in those areas if they could move on from those and those visitors have been co-operating,” he said.

Delegate base camp

A base camp to accommodate and feed hundreds of volunteer fire-fighters from Victoria is in full swing at Delegate.

About a quarter of the town's population attended a community meeting on Friday to hear advice about the potential risk.

Irene Butterworth owns the local store and says the town is buzzing with activity.

“We are a few more than people,” she said.

“We're a town of about 400 and at the moment we're maybe five times that at least with all the transfer crews.

“And what you see down there in fire trucks is half of the army because the other half of the army is out there at the moment.”

'Good news"

Fire-fighters on the Monaro and far south coast say they have had good news over the weekend.

Two blazes that have been running for more than a week have finally been contained with operations moving towards patrol status.

On the coast, helicopters should today douse the remaining hotspots of the Cooranbene blaze, 40km north west of Moruya.

Incident Controller, Preston Cope, says fire-fighters will finally be able to take a break.

“It's taken its toll,” he said.

“We've been rotating through all our local crews over the last two weeks and we've been pulling in out of area people as well.

“We were expecting to go into a pretty big hazard reduction season in about a month's time and we were hoping that crews were going to have a rest before we start doing that.

Shannons Flat fire

The suspicious Murrumbucca fire north of Cooma is now finally contained.

Fire-fighters have been trying to control the steep, rugged country for more than a week.

With no lightning activity in the area at the time, police investigations into its cause are continuing.

Rural Fire Service Spokesman Fred Nicholls says the end result is satisfying.

“No houses whatsoever,” he said.

“No stock losses at this time.

“There were approximately 5 or 6 houses that were directly threatened but crews got around those and saved those houses and did a brilliant job.

“We've had a couple of reports of a couple of sheds being damaged.

“We have been over the most of the fire ground and there hasn't been any report of any major property loss at all.”